The great danger that comes with having good assistant coaches is having other programs come calling for their services.

Enter Penn State linebacker coach Brent Pry, a candidate, according to multiple outlets, for the Georgia Southern head coaching job.

By all accounts Pry is in the thick of the search and may have to decide between coming back to Penn State or taking over as head coach down south.

According to the Statesboro Herald, Pry interviewed for the head coaching vacancy at Georgia Southern. Pry spent one season as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach a year before linking up with James Franklin and the rest of the Vanderbilt staff in 2011.

“I’m a huge Brent Pry fan,” Franklin said Wednesday. “He's been extremely valuable. I don't think he gets enough credit as our Co-DC. He's my assistant head coach. Brent and (strength coach) Dwight Galt are the two guys I bounce a lot of decisions off of.”

The news comes just a year after Pen State put up the money to keep defensive coordinator Bob Shoop who was reportedly a candidate for the same position at LSU. Franklin is against lateral job moves, but if one of his assistants tries to go upward he'll try and keep him rather than try and stop him.

“The administration has been supportive in helping us keep our staff intact,” Franklin said. “If a guy has a chance to be a head coach and it'll make his family happy, there's no one that will be more supportive than me. At the same time, I don't want to lose him.”

Penn State would be wise to put up the resources to keep one of the program's best assistants. But at the end of the day program stability at the expense of assistant happiness is a dangerous balance.